


Where Wild Plants Bristle and Grow

by mrnotaboy



Series: Cliche Storm [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuuin no Tsurugi | Fire Emblem: Binding Blade
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Body Horror, Curses, Hanahaki Disease, Light Angst, M/M, Pining, i mean it's me what do you expect, no betas we die like friendless losers, only a little tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:07:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28435113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrnotaboy/pseuds/mrnotaboy
Summary: The truest love, some say, is suffocating. Wolt disagrees.[Hanahaki AU. cw: slight gore.]
Relationships: Roy/Wolt (Fire Emblem)
Series: Cliche Storm [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2082762
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	Where Wild Plants Bristle and Grow

**Author's Note:**

> I make no promises lmao  
> Also, I tried something new with Wolt's character this time and Im not sure what I think of it.

\--  
  


Wolt had never been cursed before but, truth be told, he wasn’t very impressed.

Maybe it was because of how unexpected it was, but the gravity of the situation hadn’t hit him until much, much later. And who goes around cursing people? It was ridiculous, was what it was, and even though Wolt felt bad for the guy you can’t just go around _cursing people--_

Wait, wait. Wolt was getting ahead of himself. How to begin?

From the beginning, he guessed. That was usually a good place to start, right?  
  


It began with a letter.

Not to Wolt, of course. To Master Roy. Well, to Lord Eliwood, really. But Roy’s father was starting to hand more and more responsibilities over to his son, and perhaps he thought that this would be a good opportunity to teach Roy about dealing with the simple, everyday troubles of his people. To learn how to get down on the level of the common folk, earn their trust and loyalty on his own terms. It was a very good idea, Wolt had thought, and when Master Roy had read the letter to him he couldn't help but feel a twinge of sympathy for the writer.

A young woman from the village closest to the manor had written the Marquis with a plea for help: recently, it seemed, she had rebuked one of her suitors, and the young man had not taken her refusal to heart, following her insistently with declarations of love and propositions of marriage. 

No matter how politely she declined, she wrote, he had persisted until she’d had absolutely enough of it. She had told him straight up front that she wasn’t interested, would never be interested, and to please leave her alone, for the sake of the saints.

She soon surmised that this must’ve been the wrong thing to say, as the young man hadn’t taken the rejection well. He still followed her, though now he was moody and sullen, giving her dark looks and taking every chance to besmirch her good name and drive away her more suitable companions.

She was at her wits end, she wrote, and though she knew it was below the attention of such a grand and busy lord, please forgive her, she didn’t know where else to turn. Perhaps, if he wasn’t too busy, and had it in his heart to pity her, he could maybe write this man a letter dissuading him from continued harassment? He hadn’t committed any real crime, she knew, but maybe if his most respected Lord was the one to deter him she may know some peace. Get on with her life, and he with his.

Master Roy, in his compassion, wrote the young lady back immediately, explaining that his father was otherwise indisposed but that he’d gladly write the young man in his stead if she would let him. She had agreed, and that was the long, tordid story of how Wolt found himself standing before a morose young man in the corner of a dimly lit public house, parchment in hand.

“Please, don’t get up,” said Wolt, and the young man in front of him stilled, eyes darting to the exit. “You’re Adrian, right? You live in the square?”

“...Yes,” said the man, Adrian, though Wolt hadn’t really needed his answer. The young lady had pointed him out herself. Besides, from the way the youth had stared at her and tried to follow when she left, Wolt was confident that this particular mopey guy was the one he was looking for.

“I have a missive for you,” said Wolt. “From the House of Pherae. I can read it for you if you don’t know how.”

Adrian, who’s face had been perplexed at the prospect of getting a personal message from the lord of the manor, glared at Wolt’s offer.

“I can read it myself, thank you ,” he snarled, obviously insulted. “I’ll have you know I’m currently apprenticing with a mage. _‘If you don’t know how’,_ by Elimine.” 

The youth snatched the sealed roll of parchment from the other man’s outstretched hand then, and while he read through it Wolt studied him for a moment.

Though he was young still, it was obvious that this Adrian was older than him by at least a few years. His dark hair hung greasy over his tired eyes, and it was so obvious that he hadn’t been sleeping that Wolt almost felt sorry for him. 

Almost.

Adrian’s face went purple as he read and reread the short missive, and eventually he turned to Wolt with a heavy sense of bewilderment.

“What is this?” he demanded. Wolt glanced down to make sure he’d been given the right message.

Yep. There it was, in Master Roy’s neat, cursive hand. The message he was intended to deliver, clear and decisive.

“I thought you said you could read,” Wolt replied innocently. Adrian’s bewilderment gave way to anger, and he stood up suddenly as he glared at his unlucky messenger.

“I know what it said!” he hissed. A few heads in the tavern turned to look at them for a brief moment before returning to their business, as if collectively realizing, _‘oh, it’s just that Adrian boy again.’_

“What I _want_ to know,” the sullen young man continued, “is what place our Lord thinks he has in my love life.”

“It was a direct request from your lady friend,” Wolt explained. “She doesn’t seem to like the scene you’ve been making around her.”

“Of course I’ve been making a scene!” Adrian scoffed. “She broke my heart, that witch!” 

Wolt took a step back. Adrian liked to talk with his hands, it seemed.

“Yeah, well…” Wolt scratched the back of his neck as the other man glowered at him. “You don’t think you’ve been a bit much, mate? Honestly, I don’t think the dramatics are doing you a lot of good.”

Adrian sputtered, banging his hands on the table between them. No one in the tavern bothered to look up.

 _“Dramatics!”_ he repeated furiously. “I’ll show you _dramatics!_ Do you know how it feels to have the air dragged from your lungs, your heart squeezed to bits by rejection? Do you?!”

Wolt, to the youth’s continuing ire, simply shrugged.

Adrian let out a great, angry bellow, and pointed two fingers at Wolt.

“A curse!” he yelled, and oh, wow, no wonder that lady didn’t want anything to do with this guy. “I curse you, you fiend! May you know my suffering!”

This must be a common occurrence, these ‘curses’, as when Wolt glanced around no-one else so much as batted an eye.

“May the flowers of love mock your every act and smother you in their irony!”

“...Okay,” said Wolt. “Uh, would you sign this paper? It’s to let the Marquis know you read his message.”

 _“Give me a pen,”_ Adrian growled. He snatched the tiny pot of ink and quill that Wolt offered him and went about scrawling his name on the needed parchment.

“You’re firmly cursed now, you know,” he continued angrily. “The only cure is the one thing I shall now never have, else it will consume you.”

“Okay,” replied Wolt, not really paying attention as he waited for the ink to dry.

“It’s true love’s kiss,” Adrian explained, as if the dark satisfaction of such a nigh impossible goal gave him some form of twisted comfort. Good for him. “Something you’ll surely never get to experience with your oafish countenance.”

“Mm hm,” said Wolt as he rolled up the parchment. “Sure. Thanks, buddy.”

“You’ll be choking on your deeds before long!” Adrian cried after his retreating back. “You’ll see!”

So, yeah. First curse. Not very impressive.

Not at first, at least.

\--

  
  


He didn’t bother telling anyone at first.

If that guy had really, actually cursed him, Wolt thought, it was an underwhelming spell to be sure. The worst that had happened to him was that he’d gotten a slight, almost unnoticeable cough. The only reason he even realized that it was any kind of issue was because Master Roy had brought it up.

“Are you okay?” He’d asked one morning, and he watched carefully as Wolt cleared his throat for what must have been the third time since sunrise. 

“I’m fine, Master Roy,” Wolt had replied. 

Predictably, Roy furrowed his nose at the title, but he didn’t mention his displeasure this time. He just gave Wolt’s back a little pat and said, “You’ve been coughing a lot lately. You’ll look after your health, won’t you?”

His eyebrows had been furrowed in concern, and, well, look--Wolt wasn’t going to deny that he enjoyed the attention. It was Master Roy. The fact that the tiniest, faintest little cough had gotten him worried sent a small thrill of joy through him, and he’d simply laughed.

By the end of the week the cough had gotten a little heavier, a little more regular, and Wolt still didn’t think much of it. He’d had colds worse than this, after all--and some curse, this. Wolt would've felt more discomfort with a stone in his shoe.

Now _that_ would be a curse, he thought. May there always be a stone in your shoe and a pebble in your boot. Grain of gravel in your slipper and sand in your socks. He’d be grovelling for atonement with something like that, but this? Doesn’t compare.

Yes, as it was Wolt had definitely felt much, much worse. Whether the sullen youth had realized it or not, Wolt did, indeed, know what it was like to pine away for someone with no chance of reciprocation. He had to say, this wasn’t it, chief.

A little cough? Hah. He’d watched Master Roy dance with girls of high standing and smile at lady suitors. He has felt his heart prick as he helped Marcus line up newer and lovelier women for Lord Roy to court, and he’s comforted each one as she’d been refused. He’s felt the fleeting touch of Roy’s hand on his, straightened his collars in treasured stolen moments, close enough to count eyelashes and freckles, literally went through war and back just to see his lord smile again...

Wolt knew what the pain of love felt like, and this wasn’t it.

\--  
  
  


The first time Wolt felt the slightest twinge of panic, he was doing his training with Alen in the courtyard.

He’d just been thrown heavy onto his back and the cough that shook him this time was different, something deeper and straining, and at the end of it he found something fibrous left on his tongue.

“Damn, sorry,” said the elder knight with a laugh, and though he offered a hand to help Wolt up he didn’t take it. He spat what had been in his mouth into his hand.

It took a moment for Wolt to realize what it was. At first he thought he might've bit off the tip of his tongue without realizing, but it was much smaller, much softer, and though it was mangled and wet it became obvious that it was the purple blossom of a clover.

“Hey, you okay?” Alen asked. He leant down to get a better look. “What’ve you got there?”

“Um,” said Wolt, and he looked up at his senior with a deceptively calm face.

“I think I might be cursed,” he said. Alen had laughed.

Wolt would've laughed too, if he hadn't felt something strange itching in his chest.

\--

_Trifolium pratense._ Red clover. Why did they call it red when it was purple?

“It could be worse,” his mother offered. “It could be roses. _Ouch.”_

And of course it was a weed that had infested his chest, couldn’t be something cool or romantic. Something like lilacs or peonies.

“Lilac is so woody, now _that_ would hurt,” his mother supplied. “I’m pretty sure you got off lucky, my lovely.” 

She rubbed his back as he coughed--no, _hurled_ \--a lungful of damp, green little leaves and soft spikey burrs into a wash basin. Lucky his ass.

This was all insult added onto injury as far as he could tell, and that was his main complaint, really. The clover was soft, and while his chest would get heavy and his throat and stomach sore from the retching, there wasn’t any _real_ damage being done. He could live with this.

That was, he could. Until the thistles started coming up.

Rebecca was there the first time it happened, rubbing her son’s back and cooing like when he was little and had caught a stomach bug. Then the usual, uncomfortable gagging feeling was superseded by a new sensation, a painful, ripping one that burnt all the way from his eyes to his core.

“Oh, gods--” his mother had said, and then up, up, came a great shudder and cry as he panicked and tore the offender from his throat, thorns ripping and tearing as the bristle of the plant caught on his hands. The stem was longer than the small clumps of clover he was now used to. There was blood covering the basin instead of phlegm.

“Oh,” said Wolt as he spit out the remains, a strained wonder in his voice.

“I’m actually _cursed._ ”

\--

It was weird, finally contemplating your mortality after years of not thinking twice about it.

Even during the war Wolt hadn’t thought much of it at all. He supposed that he was just too busy trying to survive, youthful confidence never letting him doubt his chances _._ He felt invincible back then. He was still young, why couldn't he feel invicible _now?_

The weeds felt heavy in his lungs, suffocating. The man who had cursed him had skipped town ages ago.

Wolt was going to die, he knew, all because of some literal _invasive plant_.

“It’s going to be okay, my lovely,” Rebecca had said, petting his hair and holding him close as he trembled, clover and blood fresh on his lips. “We’re going to find him. You’re going to be fine.”

“Stay calm,” Sir Lance had said. “We have people scouring the principality for him. He won’t get far.”

“Don’t worry,” Lord Eliword had said. “We’ll find a curse-breaker soon. Nothing will happen to you, Wolt.”

Alone in his room, Wolt laughed bitterly as he pulled small, bloodied leaves from his teeth.

None of them had mentioned meeting the condition. Didn’t they have faith he’d find some mythical true love’s kiss? That he’d rally and find his cure in the arms of another? No?

Good. Because he didn’t either. The plants grew and grew in his lungs, taking up precious inches of air, and he coughed again. It’s hoarse, and painful, and all that came up was spittle and blood.

This is why the man had chosen this curse, and not rocks-in-your-shoes or food-turns-to-ash. 

The man could sense his worthlessness from the very sight of him. Wolt wasn’t the type that attracted things like true love, or good fortune. He was plain. He wasn’t wealthy, or clever, and he had nothing to his name but his bow. 

He wasn’t funny. He had no talents or strengths. He wasn’t even a very good archer. He probably wasn't even a very good friend.

Most damningly, he supposed, was that he was stupid. He had held onto something impossible for so long that it was going to destroy him. That was probably a deal-breaker, right? Who wants a man that wilfully ignores reality?

That reminded him. Master Roy hadn’t visited in a while.

Wolt smothered another cough as he looked out the window of his room. He hadn’t been able to go out for a while now. Was this going to be the last thing he saw? Were his only companions going to be his mother and the bristled flowers that carved their way out of him?

He didn’t blame Roy for not visiting. He was sure he looked pathetic. Dying did that to you. He didn’t think that he wanted Roy to remember him like this.

Wolt coughed.

Alright, fine. He’d admit it. This feeling? This was pretty close to the pain of love.

\--

Wolt was on his deathbed, he was pretty sure, the next time he saw Roy.

And, yes, that sounded dramatic. But it was. It was very dramatic, thank you very much. The clover had grown dense and full in his lungs like moss, the thistles shooting up until they tangled and clogged his throat, and he was pretty sure that if he opened his mouth that the deep purple blooms would spill out of his mouth like gems.

What was that fairytale? Toads and Flowers? They never really talked about the nitty gritty of that one, did they? How suffocating the flowers must have been, how harshly the diamonds would scrape.

Wolt couldn’t move. He could barely take his tiny, grasping breaths. He _wished_ that he couldn’t cough either, but of course he still did. They just came in the forms of convulsions now, wet gagging against the thorns and clots in his windpipe.

He could hear his mother crying outside, and he wondered if the thistles would push their way up through his eyes once he was gone, up through his skin. If he’d just become a boy-shaped patch of meadow rooted where he lay, a memorial garden for himself.

There was a certain humour in it. An entire war against one of the strongest military forces in the world couldn’t kill him, but a bit of grass? _Hoo, boy._ Move over, crossbows, curses were the real future of warfare.

It was as he was having that thought that Master Roy had appeared, tired and rushed. Wolt’s vision was blurring, already, but he could just _feel_ the despair radiating off of his friend. His best friend. Gods, was he gonna die without Roy knowing? Maybe it was for the best.

“Wolt,” Roy said, his voice breaking, and Wolt found himself cursing as he fell to his knees by his bedside, wiped something from Wolt’s face--blood. He was bleeding out of his nose now, great. At least, Wolt hoped it was just his nose. 

You shouldn’t’ve come here, he thought. I don’t want you to remember me like this. Why did you come?

“I can’t find him,” Roy rasped, and had he been crying? Wolt knew he should be flattered, but it just _hurt._ He didn’t want Roy to be crying for him. He didn’t want Roy to be in pain. 

“I can’t find him for you,” his lord whispered. “I’m so sorry, Wolt. I’m so sorry.”

Wolt shook his head, the thorns pulling and stinging, and gods, if only he could speak. If only he could say, ‘it’s not your fault. It’s not your responsibility. You owe me nothing, Roy.’

Gods. If only he could call him Roy. Just one last time, please, just let him call him Roy.

“I’m sorry,” Roy repeated. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

Stop apologizing, Wolt thought. You have no reason to apologize. Why did you have to see me like this?

But Roy didn’t stop. He apologized and apologized, his voice getting thinner and thinner, and then he did something that Wolt did not expect.

He leant over, shaking, and put Wolt’s face in his hands. He kissed him.

It was not instantaneous, and it was not pretty. The same could be said for the kiss, really, with Roy shuddering and crying and Wolt’s face all bloodied and--well, the _thistles_ growing in his mouth. But then…

But then they stopped growing. Wolt could feel it. In his lungs, the encroaching foilage paused. They didn’t disappear. Wolt was still suffocating, still fighting for breath, but there was nothing new. The pressure was stagnant. Wolt had to take this chance.

He summoned what was left of his energy, sat up, and began to pull the thistles out of his mouth.

It was agonizing, worse than if he had just coughed them up. His throat constricted against his will, grabbed onto the stems, broke off thorns inside of him. It seemed to go on forever, and when it did stop he started to hack again, violently, more smatters of blood and thistle and clumps of tiny round leaves.

He leaned weakly over the side of the bed as he retched, as he willed all of it to leave in one go. His lungs still felt heavy. He could still feel little bits of clover stuck in his windpipe. He’d probably still be coughing up plants for days, if not weeks. But they had stopped growing.

His vision started to clear. He felt a hand on his back, solid and warm. Roy was staring at him intently, fear and determination on his face, eyes wet but hopeful.

“Oh,” said Wolt, his voice hoarse and not his. “I guess you liked me back after all.”

A faint, disbelieving smile cracked on Roy’s face, briefly, before Rebecca rushed in, panicked and full of dread. Wolt smiled weakly at her. She crumpled to his side, her gasps and sobs almost as heavy as the hand on his back.

Alright, he thought. The curse was just a little impressive. But only just a bit. 

  
  


\-- 

**Author's Note:**

> I just think clover and thistles suit Wolt better than conventional flowers would okay
> 
> Written in one sitting. This is the mushiest, most twee thing i think i have ever written and I am ashamed. At least there is blood.


End file.
